Abel Tasman National Park

The Abel Tasman National Park is like a paradise: beaches - sometimes more, sometimes less, water - sometimes more, sometimes less (ebb and flow 😉), rainforest and beautiful weather. The sun is shining and it is warm. I finally no longer need a fleece jacket and warm socks to sleep! May it stay that way.

I'll stay here for a few more days. The back doors of the camper are usually open and I enjoy the view of the water. But a trip right into the middle of the national park is a must, I don't want to walk the entire Coasttrack. In the campsite office I ask about a nice and feasible tour and get a recommendation, including booking the water taxi. Because there are no roads in the national park, you either walk, paddle, swim or take a water taxi.

In the morning a bus picks me up at the campsite and takes me to the water taxi headquarters. There are a lot of tractors there and the taxis are already on their trailers. It doesn't surprise me at first, but I do wonder how I can get to the water and the boat dock. The question answers itself very quickly. After my starting point has been announced and my name has been asked, I am sent directly to the boat on the trailer. After the boat is full, the tractor starts moving. I've really never seen anything like that. 16 people are sitting on a boat that is on a trailer and is being driven through the town by a tractor 😅. It is just low tide when we arrive at the water. This doesn't bother the tractor, it just drives onto the beach until we reach deeper water, where the tractor turns and drives backwards into the water. At some point we are uncoupled, slip off the trailer and, as we should, drive on the water. What a ride! 😀

We don't go directly towards the national park, we take a little detour and check out the Split Apple. A stone ball that has broken through in the middle.

But then the journey begins, although the boat flies rather than drives. It hops, flies and jumps into the water. As long as it's in the air everything is nice, but as soon as it hits the water I feel like my stomach is being jostled up. That's really not a pleasant feeling. But the trip goes by quickly and at some point I am let out of the boat on a beach and can now start walking.

In the office, when booking, they said that it was a bit uphill at the beginning, but after that it was really easy. It's 9:30 a.m. and I'll be picked up again from my final destination at 3 p.m.

I'm running off. It goes into the rainforest. I think the New Zealand forest is really great. The saying “can’t see the forest for the trees” is true here. Everything is so densely overgrown, if there were no paths between them, there would be no way you could get through. At the beginning it's just a bit uphill and it's not a problem at all to walk this path. After a while, however, it just goes uphill and eventually downhill and then uphill again and uphill and downhill and uphill... I'm just cursing. This constant up and down is killing me. I don't feel like it anymore! But the taxi isn't waiting for me at 3 p.m. So it continues. The nature around me is at least beautiful and the view from above of the water and the beach is something to behold. I arrive at my stopover around 11:30 a.m. In the office they said that the worst was now over and that I only needed about one or two hours to get to my destination. So I first take a quiet lunch break and eat the sandwiches I brought with me. Then the shock: a sign says that it will take me another 3 hours to get to my departure point. Ohhhh, that's going to be close, but now take your legs in your hands and get going.

That's so easy to say, because it goes up and down again and and and... And then we go to the beach, a very long beach. I have to walk the entire beach to get back on my path. Nobody comes towards me and I am often unsure whether there was a path that I missed. I'm really starting to get tired of it and am seriously considering stopping here and driving back from here. But giving up isn't my thing, so I move on. At the end of the beach I get back on my path and people come towards me. I ask them how long the route ahead of me will take and they tell me that it's a little over an hour and that the route is easy to walk. At least that calms me down.

The rest of the way is really easy and very nice to walk. After more than an hour I arrive at my destination. In front of the beach there is a cafe that sells pizza, ice cream and drinks. It's just after 1 p.m., so I still have 2 hours left, but I'm not really hungry. I'll still order a pizza because I'll get hungry at some point. When I ordered I was told that the waiting time for the pizza was an hour😳. I've never waited that long for a pizza. But well, I'll definitely be hungry by then. Then there is the ice cream before the pizza 😀.

Tired and happy that I made it, I took the taxi boat back